April Is Newton Collier Month On Ichiban

Newton not only played trumpet with everyone from the Pinetoppers to Sam & Dave, he is the Keeper Of The Knowledge.  Macon, Georgia is where it all began.

His Name's Big Daddy

Thanks to Rex from Fool's Paradise for this killer diller dedicated to our hero.

From a deep, dark catacomb down in the Fool’s Paradise fur-lined fallout shelter comes this true Big Daddy Roth rarity courtesy of Attila and the Huns. Issued as the B-Side to their anthemic Sonics-rip “Mojo Cools”, this crunchy copy includes an autograph to “Sharon” from Attila himself!

Atilla and The Huns - My Name's Big Daddy

I Can't Tell The Boys From The Girls (MP3)

The generation gap was a truly colossal chasm in 1969, as evidenced by this snippet of a Dear Abby column, which is guaranteed authentic!

Lester Flatt  -  I Can't Tell The Boys From The Girls

Sure Fire Kisses (MP3)

Justin Tubb  & Goldie Hill  -  Sure Fire Kisses 

Justin's 45-themed Nudie attire is likely the best stage wear any of us will ever see.  Surely, Ernest was beaming with pride.  Courtesy of Bear Family's superb Pepper Hot Baby, a collection of Tubb's honky-tonkin' 1950s sides.

My confession: The Rat Fink book I co-wrote with Ed Roth. IT'S FINKING TIME!

One of the hardest things I ever did was write this book with Ed Roth. He was so nuts! He made me make up a lot of his autobiography. Haha. He had a letter that I wrote him in nutso beatnik slang, that i wrote after meeting him in 1986 with Miriam Linna, Billy Miller, Andrea Kusten, etc.(see Miriam's recent postings here & on Facebook for info on that fateful day, Miriam wound up writing the intro to this book. I was pretty vocal that i wanted her to write the book but it was too late...), this letter was the blueprint for all writing of Fink stuff from that point on. He had called & asked me to write the comics he was publishing, but I couldn't get it together. So some years later in fine small town hick style, not realizing just how large a city Noo Yawk really iz, the Grand Finkster hisself jingled our ol' bud Pat Redding who was handling the krazy book deal-o in da big rotten apple & sez "Hey Pat! You live in New York, do ya know this cat named Howie Pyro?" (kinda slipped into the sorta lingo the book was scrawled in...). Miraculously she did & he said he wanted me to write it. He just happened to wind up on the phone with the one person in the publishing field in the biggest city on earth (or there abouts) who DID know me. Too weird. Or maybe not weird enough. Anyhooo this thing was WRITTEN, yeah, written with pencil/pen & paper! Waaay before computers, and i couldn't type. Still can't! It took forever & was beyond difficult. Big Daddy turned out to be pretty darned difficult as well. I loved him to death & don't wanna tarnish his rep (hahaha) but truth is he hated Rock N Roll & I seriously hadda fight to get it in the book. And other stuff too. And he insisted on mentioning his wife Bev literally about every other sentence, like a thousand times. (We counted cuz they had to pay me to remove her damned name & change it to "my wife" when she left him & he didn't want her name in it anymore! It had to be done by hand & i wanted to be paid ten cents or a quarter or some nonsense per name. Somewhere i have it written down...hahaha). I just found all the letters i got from Roth festooned with tons of drawings, on great stationery with cassette tapes and all kindsa good stuff. Luckily i had moved to LA in 2,000 and Roth was gonna be at the Rat Fink Reunion at Moon Eyes the following year & that same day I was just starting to reord the first Danzig record that I was on & I had to sneak out & see Ed. I just HAD to. I got in trouble, but Glenn understood, being a fan & big collector. This photo is from that meeting & Big Daddy died literally weeks after this & I just knew it was meant to be. I really am one lucky fink to have gotten to do all this stuff. See you all at the big LA Norton Records Benefit. I'll have lotsa krazy surprises in store for you fellow finks there!
Rat On!
Howie Pyro 3/26/13

Miriam Linna - Rat Fink

Miriam's letter to Bill Gaines from Mad Mag!  Thanks, Mimsy!

Do The Rat Fink With Howie Pyro!

Big thanks to Howie Pyro over at Luxuria Music for playing an Ed "Big Daddy" Roth set on his show!  Listen here.  You can catch Intoxica Radio with Howie every Tuesday night live at 9 PM PST.  The show is also archived every week!

Hardrock Gunter

Hardrock Gunter - February 25th 1925 - March 15th 2013

Hardrock Gunter passed away a few weeks ago. Give a listen to this fantastic interview that took place back in 2010 on Fool's Paradise with Rex. Learn the origin of the "Hardrock" name and hear how he acheived the amazing echo Boppin to Grandfather's Clock.

Great Music and Great tales from the man himself. 

Thanks Rex for this amazing interview.

Fool's_Paradise_with_Rex__-__Hardrock_Gunter_Interview_ 

For further study: http://www.hardrockgunter.com

Happy Birthday To The Patron Saint Of Ichiban

Thinking About Lee "The Burner" Austin And A Few Nice Things

March 22, 1934 I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart) ~EMMA~

Published in The Augusta Chronicle on March 22, 2013

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth & Von Dutch On Network Awesome

Benefit For Norton Records!

More info.